Lone Wolf Page 11

  What was Villa San Francesco offering? he wondered.

  Two stone lions slept on either side of the entrance gate. A marble plaque boasted a sculptural relief of St Francis administering the holy sacrament to a kneeling pilgrim. Next to the sign was an electronic panel marked Santuario di Villa San Francesco and a red plastic button which activated a microphone/speaker. A TV camera peered down at him from the wall. Close up, it looked more like a fortified bunker than a monastery. Was it now a private sanctuary for some multi-millionaire rock musician?

  He pushed the button, and waited.

  A minute passed, and nothing happened.

  Was he disturbing someone’s meditation, or someone’s sleep?

  He pushed the button again, and a microphone crackled into life.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’d like to visit the convent,’ he said.

  ‘That isn’t possible, I’m afraid.’

  The voice was metallic, unyielding, providing no additional information.

  Whoever was monitoring the conversation must have seen that he was wearing a uniform, yet they didn’t ask him who he was, or what he wanted. Maybe they didn’t care. Perhaps they had nothing to fear.

  ‘May I see the church, then?’ he asked.

  ‘The church is no longer open to visitors.’

  Could it be that they were really monks, a closed religious order?

  ‘May I speak to …’ He hesitated for a moment. What did you call the top monk? ‘To the person in charge?’

  ‘Please make an appointment by referring to our website.’

  Website?

  ‘Can’t I telephone and ask?’

  ‘We do not accept phone calls from an outside line.’

  ‘Is this a closed convent, a silent order, prayer and meditation only?’

  ‘Information is available to the public on the website.’

  He had run out of uncompromising questions.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said.

  Nothing came back.

  The metallic hum died away as the connection was cut.

  And God bless you! he thought as he turned away and wandered back to the car.

  The monks in Umbria had always been renowned for their hospitality, but this lot seemed to be giving nothing away.

  The gravel car park was laid out on a slope. As he swung the car in a wide circle, he caught sight of something at the rear of the convent that he’d been half-expecting to see, though he didn’t quite believe that he was seeing it.

  A helicopter landing pad. Was that where the aircraft had come from? Or had the Pope dropped in for morning coffee and a bite to eat?

  Was that why they were being so cagey?

  Anything was possible in Umbria, the ‘mystical’ heart of Italy.

  He turned right at the gate in the direction of Borgo Cerreto and drove for ten minutes, stopping off at the first roadside bar he came to.

  ‘What can I get you?’ the barman asked him.

  Cangio ordered a bottle of mineral water.

  ‘Large or small? Fresh or fizzy?’

  ‘A small one, please. And make it still water.’

  Then he ordered a coffee.

  ‘Can you add a drop of cold milk to the coffee?’ he said, as the barman turned to his Gaggia, wondering how to get a conversation started, how to bring it around to a question that was puzzling him.

  ‘No problem at all,’ the barman said, taking in his uniform, then looking at his face for the first time. ‘Hey,’ he said, ‘haven’t I seen you someplace?’

  Cangio’s picture had been splashed all over the newspapers and on the local TV after the shooting at Marra Truffles just six months earlier. Before he had the chance to reply, the barman said, ‘Yeah, I saw you on the telly!’

  The conversation went easily after that.

  The barman knew of the truffle-merchant who had died when police had raided the factory where he was processing cocaine. ‘Antonio Marra dropped in here occasionally,’ he said in a hushed voice. ‘A real wide boy, that one. He got what was coming to him, if you ask me.’ The barman seemed excited by the fact that the Calabrian mafia had been moving into the area. ‘What do they call them fellas?’

  ‘The ’Ndrangheta,’ Cangio specified.

  ‘Now, they might shake things up a bit round here,’ the man said, leaning over the counter. ‘Build a few factories, you know, create a bit of work for the youngsters. Fresh blood, a bit of investment and development. Big money, that’s what we need. Without the tourists, this place is deader than a cemetery at four in the morning.’

  ‘Talking of fresh blood,’ Cangio said, ‘you’ll need a bigger cemetery if the ’Ndrangheta moves in. They’ll get the kids to build it, then the mafia will bury them in it.’

  The barman had a laugh about that, seemed to think it was a great joke.

  Then the conversation drifted naturally to business and the economic crisis.

  ‘Are things looking up at all?’ Cangio asked him.

  The barman sniffed with disgust, then shook his head. ‘It’s getting worse with every day that passes,’ he said. ‘I’d sell up, if anyone would make me an offer. I’m making fifty euro here on a good day. It’s passing trade mostly, people on their way to work in Spoleto or Terni. A coffee, a packet of fags, a ham sandwich if I’m really lucky.’

  ‘Still, a lot of building seems to be going on,’ Cangio said.

  ‘Thank God for earthquakes!’ the barman laughed. ‘If things fall down, you’ve got to put them back in shape. There isn’t much else to keep the wolf from the door.’

  ‘I passed a place called Villa San Francesco on the road to Rocchetta,’ Cangio said. ‘Do you know it? Recently restored, by the look of it. They must have spent a fortune doing it up. I bet the builders brought you loads of business. I mean to say, you’re the closest bar. Breakfast, lunch, a beer or two before going home …’

  He drank some water from the bottle and waited.

  ‘The builders? Yeah, they were up there for a few months. And not just the local lads. They had loads of specialists and fitters in, too. Technicians, like. They came from Rome, Milan, all sorts of places.’

  ‘What were they fitting?’

  The barman shrugged. ‘No one talks about their work, do they? And you can’t really blame them. I mean to say, if I went home and told the wife what I’ve been doing in here all bloody day, she’d have me put down.’

  ‘So, what is it, Villa San Francesco?’ Cangio asked. ‘Now the work’s done, I mean.’

  The barman pursed his lips, then sniffed loudly again.

  ‘Is it still a monastery?’ Cangio suggested.

  ‘Nah, I don’t think so. I thought our luck was in, though,’ the barman said, confiding now, one elbow on the counter. ‘When I saw those helicopters coming and going, d’you want to know what I thought?’

  Cangio waited.

  The barman lowered his voice, looked left and right in the empty room.

  ‘Bunga bunga,’ he hissed across the counter. ‘Silvio B, you know? Orgies, and that. I thought he might have bought the place. Out there in the woods. A millionaire like him. It’s as private as you like. It would be a great place for … well, you know, the old bunga bunga.’

  ‘And did he buy it?’ Cangio asked.

  The barman shrugged his shoulders again.

  ‘How should I know?’ he said, ringing up the bill. ‘That’s one euro eighty.’

  Cangio paid, and turned to leave.

  ‘I’ll tell you one thing, though,’ the barman called after him. ‘I haven’t seen too many half-dressed bunga-girls in my bar recently.’

  FOURTEEN

  Loredana was in the kitchen when he got home that evening.

  ‘Hi, there, stranger,’ she said, glancing over her shoulder.

  He moved in close behind her, put his arms around her waist, kissed the back of her neck.

  ‘Had a good day?’ she asked him.

  ‘It’s looking better now,’ he said. ‘I’ve been
running around, getting nowhere.’

  ‘Lucky you!’ she said, turning to face him, planting a kiss on his lips. ‘I’ve been stuck in the shop all day. And now you’ve got me slaving in the kitchen, too.’

  ‘What’s on the menu tonight, then, chef?’

  ‘Salad and steak,’ she said. ‘We’re eating too much pasta.’

  ‘It sounds good,’ he said, sitting down to take off his work boots and woollen socks.

  He padded through to the bedroom in his bare feet, put on a clean pair of socks, then slid into his ‘slippers’, a pair of Timberland moccasins he had bought ten years before while still at university. They fitted him like a glove, and were far too comfortable to throw away, though Lori often threatened to do just that. He would have grabbed those shoes if the house had been on fire.

  Lori favoured her five-inch stilettos for getting out of a burning house.

  ‘I’d wear those, and nothing else,’ she always said. ‘Can you imagine the fireman fighting to save me, naked except for my high heels?’

  Cangio had no doubt the firemen would fight over her even if she were wearing rubber wellies and a shopping bag over her head. Loredana was a firefighter’s dream.

  ‘Can you start the barbecue?’ she said, turning back to the salad bowl.

  He took a bottle of red wine from the rack, carried it outside, popped the cork, then left the wine to breathe while he cleaned the barbecue grill with a wire brush, sprinkled charcoal nuggets into the tray, added a squeeze of lighter fuel, then struck a match.

  Running around all day, and getting nowhere?

  It was worse than that. He was like a truffle dog on a leash. Only one thing on his mind, and it wasn’t truffles. That photograph he’d seen at the airport. The man in the cap stopping to light his cigarette. The mark on his neck …

  Was it a tattoo, or wasn’t it?

  And what about that name written on the side of the van?

  He hadn’t seen a minibus with a sliding door in the car park at Villa San Francesco, though the lettering on the sign outside the gate had been … well, similar. Which proved nothing. Lucia Grossi would have wiped the floor with him if he’d told her what he thought he might have seen on that blurry airport photograph.

  Until he laid his hands on something more solid, he decided, it would be best to keep quiet and say nothing.

  But those thoughts would not go away. It was like a video-loop running through his brain, the man in the baseball cap coming out of the airport, a cigarette in his mouth, bending forward to meet the flame, exposing a tattoo – well, a mark on his neck – before he climbed into a waiting vehicle.

  If it was a salamander, did it mean that something was going on in Umbria?

  ‘How’s the barbecue coming?’

  Lori was laying the table under the porch.

  ‘It’ll be ready by the time we down a glass of wine,’ he said.

  It was early in the year to eat outside, but Loredana usually got what she wanted. If a romantic meal on a chilly evening was her idea of heaven, then he could go along with it.

  He poured two glasses of wine, then sat down opposite her.

  She dipped her finger in the wine, then licked it dry.

  ‘Montefalco red,’ she said. ‘You like it?’

  He took a sip, watching as she raised the glass to her lips.

  ‘I see a lot of things I like,’ he said.

  She arched her eyebrows. ‘Like what?’

  He loved the way she was looking at him for a start. He knew what she was thinking, too. She wanted him to take that glass from her hand, plant his lips on hers, suck the soul out of her, carry her inside, then rip off her clothes like a kid unwrapping his Christmas presents.

  That was what he should have done.

  He wanted to do it, too.

  But then the moment passed.

  She looked away, and Cangio heard the words he was saying, almost unable to believe that they were coming out of his mouth.

  ‘Have you heard of Villa San Francesco, Lori? It’s an old monastery out near Ponte on the way to Rocchetta.’

  She frowned at him. She hadn’t been expecting a question like that one.

  ‘Dio santo, Seb! You’re sipping a wine the Gods would kill for, and you haven’t even said it’s good. What’s going on inside your head?’

  Yes, he could go along with it. What was going on in there?

  He shrugged. ‘Curiosity,’ he said. ‘I drove past there today, and wondered what it was.’

  ‘What did you say it was called?’

  ‘Villa San Francesco.’

  Lori took another sip of wine. ‘It sounds like the place where one of my mum’s friends tried to park her mother. The old lady’s ninety-eight, and drooling. They can’t take care of her. She thought it might be a nursing home for OAPs.’

  OAPs with a helicopter pad?

  ‘Does anyone know of an OAP who’s actually in care there?’

  ‘How should I know?’ Lori said offhandedly. ‘You’d better turn those steaks over before they burn.’

  Blue smoke was streaming out of the barbecue.

  ‘Isn’t it the old Franciscan monastery?’ she said. ‘When I was a kid, we used to picnic in those woods at weekends. The place was totally abandoned then.’

  ‘Now it’s looking good. They’ve put a lot of money into it.’

  ‘Good for them,’ she said, pouring more wine for both of them.

  ‘It’s quiet up there,’ he said. ‘A bit too isolated, though.’

  ‘Why do the rich buy islands? Isolated’s what they want.’

  ‘These people come and go by helicopter …’

  His voice trailed away like the sounds of the rotors passing over his head.

  ‘That friend of your mum’s …’

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘Did she send her mother to Villa San Francesco?’

  Lori laughed. ‘I doubt it very much. I mean to say, this woman’s husband is a retired plumber. Do you know any plumbers with a helicopter? Keep an eye on that meat,’ she warned him. ‘I like mine rare.’

  ‘Ask your mum if she’s heard anything else, will you?’

  She turned on him then, suddenly worried. ‘Why are you so interested?’

  He should have known it was coming. Every time he wanted to know something, and she didn’t see the reason for it, she got worked up about it.

  ‘I’m just curious,’ he said as he speared a steak and laid it on a plate. They were big, fat Florentine steaks, five centimetres thick. This one was oozing blood. ‘I think I’ll wait a bit longer for mine,’ he said.

  ‘Are you thinking of sending me to Villa San Francesco when I’m past it?’

  ‘I haven’t got a helicopter, either,’ he said. ‘Still, maybe when the prize money arrives …’

  ‘Which prize money?’

  ‘You know, the Nobel …’

  Lori raised her eyebrows at him, but she grinned as well.

  ‘You’ll walk off with it,’ she said. ‘There’s no one else in your category.’

  ‘Which category are we talking about?’

  She bit into her steak and didn’t reply.

  Padova, Veneto

  The black Mercedes C picked Professor Bianchi up at ten o’clock.

  The driver in a dark suit opened the rear door without a word.

  There was a glass partition between him and the chauffeur, but he was used to being ferried around in luxury vehicles. There was a bar cabinet – stocked with refrigerated water only. They weren’t taking any chances, were they?

  The windows were dark smoked glass. So dark, he could hardly see out of them. Lights and signs whizzed past in a faded blur as the car accelerated, and then they got onto the Mestre–Padova motorway, the spaghetti junctions throwing his sense of direction.

  Were they heading north or south, east or west?

  He settled down in the corner and read through the draft of the paper on shockwave treatment he was planning to give in Malaysia at t
he end of the month, forgetting all about the road and the drive. He made notes in the margin with his favourite fountain pen, the one the association traditionally presented to a new president, a platinum Mont Blanc engraved with his name.

  He only spoke to the driver twice.

  The glass partition came down with a subdued electronic ping-ping-ping.

  ‘You left your phone at home, sir?’

  ‘Of course.’

  An hour later, the glass came down again.

  ‘Do we need to make a rest stop, sir?’

  ‘How much further?’

  ‘Just over an hour, sir.’

  ‘I’ll be all right, thank you.’

  After that, he closed his eyes and slept for a while.

  It was a strange experience, like being carried off by kidnappers, not knowing where they were taking you, or whether they would be bringing you back. More like a dream than any reality he had ever known.

  Valnerina

  Lori’s head settled heavily on his shoulder.

  Cangio kissed the tip of her nose, then pushed his mouth against hers.

  ‘Don’t start messing about,’ she warned him, though she didn’t pull away.

  He ran his hand along her jaw, nuzzled her neck, then kissed her throat.

  ‘I’ve been working hard all day while you’ve been gallivanting.’

  ‘Gallivanting? I’ve been working, too,’ he protested, his hand on her breast.

  ‘You call what you do work? Walking around in the woods all day?’

  He didn’t answer, pulling the sheet away, reaching down towards her …

  That was when the phone rang.

  ‘Let it ring,’ Lori whispered in his ear.

  Cangio thought of Dino De Angelis. Had something else happened up there?

  ‘I have to answer it,’ he said. ‘It might be an emergency.’

  He rolled away, sat naked on the edge of the bed, picked up the phone.

  ‘Cangio here.’

  ‘Have you heard from Desmond Harris?’

  There were no preliminaries, no apology for disturbing him at home at such a late hour. Lucia Grossi sounded nervous, edgy.

  He glanced at Lori, mouthed the word work.

  ‘Why would Harris phone me?’ he said.

  ‘I haven’t heard a word from London. I’m in and out of the office all day. I hoped he might have called you.’

  ‘I would have let you know, wouldn’t I?’